Friday, December 2, 2011

gran paradiso

2 oz Barbera de Monferrato Wine (Bear Flag Red)
1 oz Ceylon Tea, chilled (Oolong)
1 oz Famous Grouse Blended Scotch
1/2 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Simple Syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass containing a large ice cube. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

For Thanksgiving, we were lucky to not have to face all the traffic this year, and instead Andrea and I stayed home and cooked. In wondering what to do with the rest of the bottle of red wine we had opened, Andrea found an article about wine cocktails in 7x7SF that had recipes from Alex Day, a former bartender at Death & Co. who is now a consultant in Los Angeles. The one that called out to me was the Gran Paradiso that had a classic punch-like feel to it.
The Gran Paradiso presented a Scotch and nutmeg aroma. This relatively dry drink began with lemon and wine flavors on the sip. The swallow contained the Scotch including some smoke notes that worked well with the tea; moreover, the tea along with the wine donated a lingering tannin note on the aftertaste. With the whiskey, wine, and lemon, the Gran Paradiso reminded me of the 19th century New York Sour.

2 comments:

Jordan said...

By using fortified wine instead of red, you'd wind up with something a hop, skip and a jump away from the Ruby Punch in David Wondrich's book, which is quite a tasty drink. I'll have to give this one a try sometime.

frederic said...

Do you mean this Ruby Punch? That was definitely rather good and inspired me to make a variation of it. Although Batavia Arrack is a different beast from whiskey, but the combination of tea, Sour, and wine is there.